The National’s Matt Berninger announces new album and European tour
The National frontman has announced a second solo album Get Sunk is to be released May 30th through Book/Concord Records.
Berninger’s new album follows up 2020’s Serpentine Prison, and was produced and co-written with producer and engineer Sean O’Brien.
It features Meg Duffy (Hand Habits), Julia Laws (Ronboy), Kyle Resnick (The National, Beirut), Garret Lang, Sterling Laws, Booker T Jones (who produced Serpentine Prison, Harrison Whitford, Mike Brewer, and The Walkmen’s Walter Martin and Paul Maroon. Most of them worked together with Berninger and O’Brien in a Silverlake, California basement studio.
‘Bonnet of Pins’ is the album’s first single below.
North American dates start in May while European dates kick off in Dublin on August 23rd. See dates below.
Dublin tickets are €49.20 plus fees and on sale this Friday at 10am through Ticketmaster.ie from promoters Aiken.
“Our hearts are like old wells filled with pennies and worms,” Berninger says. “I can’t resist going down to the bottom of mine to see what else is there. But sometimes you can get yourself stuck.”
- May 19 – Seattle, WA – The Showbox
- May 20 – San Francisco, CA – Bimbo’s 365 Club
- May 21 – Los Angeles, CA – Palace Theatre
- May 23 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
- May 24 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
- May 26 – Toronto, ON – Concert Hall
- May 28 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
- May 29 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
- May 30 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
- August 23 Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street
- August 25 Glasgow, Scotland – SWG3 Galvanizers
- August 26 Manchester, England – Albert Hall
- August 27 London, England – Troxy
- August 28-31 Dorset, England – End of the Road Festival
- August 31 Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli Vrendenburg
- September 1 Antwerp, Belgium – Olt Rivierenhof
- September 2 Paris, France – Elysee Montmartre
- September 4 Berlin, Germany – Huxleys
- September 5 Copenhagen, Denmark – Vega
- September 6 Oslo, Norway – Rockefeller Music Hall
Berninger’s “gorgeous” (Rolling Stone) solo debut, Serpentine Prison, came out in early 2020, produced by the legendary Booker T. Jones. While Berninger says the follow-up is not necessarily an autobiographical album, the narrator is processing how he became himself. Berninger is an expert in what it feels like to lose all bravery, and Get Sunk points to an undulating reflection in the water. It’s about realizing that you are not yourself without a thousand others: parents, friends, siblings, spouses and exes, college roommates, childhood best friends, cousins, kids and even strangers.
Inspired by the flora and fauna of his new home in Connecticut after years living in Los Angeles, Berninger wrote lyrics and drew all over baseballs, and rearranged dust-covered items in his barn into strange and surreal works of art. It felt good to be creating and to understand why he loves what he does. “I was able to get the blurry picture as close to just right for me,” he says. That the picture ever comes into full focus isn’t the point; it’s by being happy that we can make out anything at all.
